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Halloween is the modern-day, commercial version of the ancient ritual of Samhain. It’s a pagan festival celebrating the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, the dark season.

But it’s also a time of the year when the veil between the living and our ancestors is believed to be thinnest.

So this year, on 30th October, the day before Samhain, I feel drawn to honour the call to join a world-wide vigil – of the living and our ancestral beings – for those at Standing Rock in America who are defending ancestral land from the laying of the Dakota Access Pipeline, being constructed by Dakota Access and Energy Transfer Partners.

These fields in central North Dakota are where the pipeline would cross the longest river in the United States—the Missouri River—putting drinking water at risk for millions of people and desecrating sacred indigenous land.

Appalling state-sanctioned violence has been unleashed against Native Americans seeking to protect their sacred land from the installation of the pipeline, which was was redirected from an area where it was most likely to impact white people and inflicted on Lakota land guaranteed to the Native Americans of that area under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

The people of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation are often called Sioux. They are the members of the Dakota and Lakota Nations.

This violence against Native American protestors and their supporters engaged in peaceful protest is a continuation of the violent suppression of Native Americans since the first white invasion in the 1600s.

It stands in stark contract to kid glove treatment meted out to the armed thugs who carried out an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for 41 days and who recently were acquitted at trial, patently because they were white and right-wing reactionaries.

As the commentator Robert Reich put it: “On the same day that a jury acquitted the Bundy brothers and their fellow protesters for taking over federal land in Oregon last January, police in North Dakota today used pepper spray gas and a painful high-pitched siren, and then arrested 117 Native Americans and others for protesting a private oil pipeline across land they say belongs to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe under a 19th-century treaty. In other words, it’s fine to mount an armed insurrection so your cattle can graze for free on federal land, but not if you want to protect your sacred burial ground or your only source of water from a private for-profit oil pipeline company.”

I think what is absolutely brilliant is the arrival of a herd of bison out of nowhere, a message of support from Mother Nature, which reinforces the traditional hold the Lakota have on their land:

On the same day that a jury acquitted the Bundy brothers and their fellow protesters for taking over federal land in Oregon last January, police in North Dakota used pepper spray gas and a painful high-pitched siren, and then arrested 117 Native Americans and others for protesting a private oil pipeline across land they say belongs to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe under a 19th-century treaty. The people of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation are often called Sioux. They are the members of the Dakota and Lakota Nations.

I’ve put in links below to add more details on events at Standing Rock, but I hope that the widest possible support is extended planet-wide for Native Americans standing up for their rights, because the violence perpetrated against them is the same violence which is perpetrated against any individuals or groups who stand up to the forces of the Establishment for the rights of the ordinary people.

Many years ago, in the early 1970s when I was an organiser for the Australian Union of Students, I had to take a couple of Palestinian students around campuses in Western Australia to talk about the Palestinian position in the Middle East.

In one forum, a young guy yelled out that no-one would want to rape a Palestinian woman in response to a comment about rape. I walked over to him, grabbed him by both ears, yanked his head forward and said: “If you make a similar comment again, I’ll rip your fucking head off”. He shut up. I might point out that I would have had a similar reaction if such a comment had been made about a Jewish woman. I don’t like racism or anti-semitism.

The next day a group of Zionist students cornered me in my office – and I use the term “cornered” as they filled the room and blocked the exit. Their leader told me they were disgusted by my bad language (okay to talk about rape but not swear apparently which says a lot about their attitude to women) which no lady would use. I pointed out to them that I wasn’t a lady which really took the wind out of their sails, much to my surprise. One of them said: “I never though the day would come when I’d hear a woman say she wasn’t a lady” and then they all slunk out of the room.

I’m making this point because yesterday I read a comment of Paul Ryan’s that “women are to be championed and revered”. Really? What a load of old baloney. Women can stand on their own two feet, thank you very much, Paul. We don’t need to be revered. We’re quite capable of being our own champions.

We need to be regarded as equals, supported in our choices, in our dignity, in equal opportunity, in young women not having to fear sexual assault or rape and then find themselves victimised as a slut when the guys who have raped her are considered jocks who’ve got their whole future ahead of them.

Women don’t need such condescending shit from a man who still hasn’t withdrawn his support from Trump. Criticising this serial sex offender and withdrawing an invitation to this disgusting guy isn’t good enough, it’s having two bob each way. But then when you look at Ryan’s record, you find out what a hypocritical slug the man is when he talks of championing and revering women:

Putting women on a pedestal, calling them ladies is, for misogynists like Ryan, a way of controlling and infantalising women, taking away their power and spruiking their need to be dependent on men who will take care of them, as if women were pathetic little creatures unable to survive on their own. “Lady” is a control mechanism to ensure you wear the “right” clothes, don’t cuss, play little, let men think they’re wonderful when you pretend to be dim and powerless, and make you feel guilty if you cross the sacred line between “lady” and “woman”.

So Ryan can take his championship and reverence of women and stick them where the sun don’t shine. Because he’s a hypocrite, a coward too afraid to disown Trump and his sick rape culture, and an enemy of women’s rights and women’s independence. He’s a hypocritical piece of shit who deserves contempt and disdain from all women who have too much pride and self-esteem to be suckered by this moronic, misogynist creep.

In Australia recently a white racist called Pauline Hanson was elected to the Senate. This woman first ran for office over 15 years ago on a racist fear campaign targeting Aboriginal and Asian people.

The racists crawled from under their rocks, happy to bash an Abo (abhorrent, racism term for Aborigines) and buy into fears that Asians would take over Australia.

The Asian invasion never happened.

But, undaunted by facts and the truth, Hanson popped up again to run yet another fear campaign, this time against Muslims in Australia. She lives for White Australia and the White Picket Fence, as well as spewing prejudice and hate. She has nothing more to offer Australians.

Similarly, in the United States, Donald Trump is also peddling fear, hate and division with his talk of “Make America Great Again”, his vicious comments about women, immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims, killing women and children in the Middle East if he thought their husbands might be in Daesh – you name it, he’s happy to take a swing at it.

And there are plenty more doing the same thing: Marine Le Pen in France; Geert Wilders in The Netherlands; the National Front and British National Party in the UK; Australian Liberty Alliance and Australia First in Australia; numerous extreme right-wing groups in the US.

The one characteristic of all the above, and other extreme right-wing organisations is that they are drawing a lot of support from people who are fed up with traditional party politics which have led to a dead-end. But they also get support from thugs and low-life who just like violence and hating “the other”. Because, hey, it’s easier to hate than it is to don our thinking cap, identify the real enemy, and sort out the mess which are capitalist economies these days.

I don’t know about other people but I’ve dithered in how to approach this whole issue of racism because I’m caught between something I espouse dearly, the power of love, and disgust at racist attitudes in people who may well be very nice people in their community but who have blinkers on when it comes to racism, or the Islamic religion, or the Jewish religion or disabled people – because where does the hate stop?

I dither because I make excuses for people – they have been screwed by the system; they’re angry at the loss of jobs; they are …. well, you can make a lot of excuses but I’m fed up making excuses.

Because today I saw two things: an image of a young Aboriginal boy in a Northern Territory prison in Australia with a hood over his face strapped into a chair which could have been photographed in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; and a movie about the death of a young black man, Emmett Till, in the US in the ‘fifties for the alleged crime of daring to whistle at a white woman. The image of that young man’s face after he’d been beaten to a pulp, had his eye gouged out, been shot in the head then thrown into the Tallahatchie river haunts me. His mother, bravely, insisted on an open coffin so that people could see the brutality enacted on this 14-year-old by his white kidnappers. A white jury found two men arrested for this savage crime not guilty after deliberating for less than an hour.

And frankly, I thought “Fuck it”. I’m over making excuses for racists. Absolutely over it. Because these people who scream horrible, racist slogans, who deface synagogues and mosques, who feel it’s okay to abuse on the streets people they don’t like are cowards. Yellow-bellied cowards. Gutless. Hateful people. I am so over making excuses.

If you abuse complete strangers because you’re too damned stupid to find out facts, to realise that the person you’re abusing is someone’s wife, husband, child, sister, mother or father, take the consequences. Take responsibility for being a hateful person.

I’m sick of hearing people with racist views whining about being called racist. It’s tough love, princes and princesses, so damned well suck it up. Racism leads to the Emmett Tills of the past. It leads to the police killings of black people in the US where white people make excuses for what is legalised murder. It leads to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, a hateful organisation. It leads to the vigilante killing of a young, unarmed black man, Trayvon Martin, and then we watched as the murdered youth was trashed in the papers and his killer got off scot-free.

In Australia the result of racism is the horrendous picture of that young man in the NT prison. Aboriginal people are jailed out of all proportion to their presence in overall society, often because so-called “tough laws” deliberately target Aboriginal people who face discrimination, poverty, exclusion from society, and so on. I know this because I lived in Queensland where I heard a horrible “joke” denigrating that wonderful athlete Cathy Freeman the day after she won a gold medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

My husband heard a worker at the Ipswich power station complain that early settlers had fallen down on the job by not exterminating Aboriginal people altogether.I’ve heard a friend’s husband stating that asylum seekers and refugees arriving by boat should be thrown overboard and shot. I thought he was joking but, when I queried him, he meant it. I’ve lived in a small town in New South Wales where three children disappeared, the police turned a blind eye and reckoned the 4-year-old “went walkabout”, until it emerged that all three had been murdered. No-one has faced the white justice system for these killings.

I return to saying that racists are fundamentally weak, gutless people because they never have to face the consequences of their racism – the abuse on the street; the calls in the UK after the Brexit referendum to “go home where you came from”, being yelled at on buses, having insults screamed at you on the streets, as happened to Aboriginal kids twenty years ago when Hanson was on the rise, or be attacked and killed for the crime of being black of Muslim, kids getting scared to go to school in the US because they fear deportation, black kids terrified of being shot by police, women wearing the Muslim veil being abused or having their headscarf ripped off.

No, it’s okay to throw out racist insults because you don’t cop it yourself, racists. You can go on your smug, self-satisfied way, patting yourself on the back because you fancy yourself superior to those who are different to you. But as Shakespeare says, “Aye, there’s the rub” because racists, in their cowardice are inferior beings, living little, contemptible lives.

Quoting Shakespeare again, however: “To be or not to be”. You have the choice. You can wallow in shit, or you can rise up and open your heart to humanity and live your life with love not hate. The choice is yours but, if you choose racism, be prepared to face the consequences and don’t start pathetic whining because you elect to play little. Because eventually racism will be given an indecent burial and be careful, if you’re racist, that you don’t get buried along with the racism.

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When I was in my first year at university, I went out with a student from Nigeria, Debo was his name. He was a nice guy, I enjoyed his company but I was well aware that, when we had a coffee in Bradford, we were looked at askance as a white girl with a black bloke. My mum went off her rocker when she found out I was going out with a Nigerian, but my dad intervened and told me to go out with whom I liked as long as the guy was a nice person. Colour, he said, didn’t come into it and that’s been my mantra ever since. It’s not your colour, creed, sexuality, height, weight or whatever – it’s what’s in your heart that counts.

As it happened, I ditched Debo shortly afterwards, not because of his colour but because he started talking about marriage and that frightened the life out of me. I’d dumped another very nice guy just before I went to university because he too started banging on about marriage which sent me haring in the opposite direction. I regret not telling my Nigerian boyfriend why I dumped him without explanation but I was a naive kid who was a virgin, had no idea about contraception, worried about his invitation back to his flat and likely sex, so I just fled the scene, so to speak.

Knowing myself through astrology now, I realise it’s because I have a lot of Aquarian in me and I don’t like being tied down or doing conventional things. In fact, it took 27 years living with my partner before I finally felt comfortable getting to the altar!

But looking back, it’s made me very glad about the luck of the draw when I was came into this world: I was born white (conventional colour) in England (safe country) and had parents who supported me in my schooling and encouraged me to go to university. I didn’t – and don’t – face discrimination because of my colour, I don’t face persecution because of my religious choices (none, by the way, if you’re interested) and I don’t get hate mail because I’m happily heterosexually married. I don’t get the heck bombed out of my home and country because I – luckily – don’t happen to live in a Middle Eastern country with oil and other resources.

Which is a roundabout way of returning to my previous post about “Make Britain/America Great/Safe Again”. Because the unspoken call behind this phrase is also for far too many “Make Britain/America white again.” Oh, and don’t let’s forget – make it okay for us to wage more Vietnam and Iraq wars so we can live in comfort with the resources we’re ripped out of other countries and turn a blind eye to the carnage we left behind.

It’s the elephant in the room, the racism (and imperialist hankerings) which all too often is the underlying message of those who want their country to go back to times past when men were white men, women were white women, the picket fence ruled supreme, kids behaved and everything was wonderful in a past viewed with rose-coloured glasses. You didn’t have social media so you didn’t have to view the godawful scenes of bombing people overseas, seeing kids shredded, buildings flattened, lives shattered by foreign (US/British & European) invasions and interventions. I am, by the way, referring only to the US, Britain and Europe because I’m focusing on white societies hankering for the past.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a President of the US treated with us much contempt and disrespect as Barack Obama. The Republicans – who use dog-whistling on racism at the drop of a hat – made the decision to undermine Obama at every opportunity. Too many claim they don’t like the current president’s policies when the fundamental problem is racism – a black man is in the White House and we (white people) want our (White) House back.

It was actually brought home to me just how much society has changed – for my mind, for the better – when I was watching the British police series, George Gently. Set in the 1960s, it tackles the discrimination that used to exist against homosexuals, black people, single mothers and other social mores of the time. It’s always excellent but it’s a reminder that things in the past were okay if you were white, but not if you were black, Irish, Jewish, single mother, poor, unemployed and so on.

Same in the US. What is going to make America great again? Lynchings of black people? Separate facilities for black and white people? Jim Crow? Discrimination against Native Americans? Sexual harassment unchecked? No protection for rape victims? Women dying from backyard abortions due to limited abortion services? Date rape? No problems. Domestic violence? Ladies, just grin and bear it. Bashing and trying to smash unions and undermine workers’ collective solidarity? And so on and so on.

In Australia, when women married they had to quit public service jobs. The treatment of Aboriginal people was appalling (not much better now). Single mums were in deep doggy-doo. Domestic violence was a taboo subject and too many women had to grin and bear the abuse. Paedophilia in the Catholic Church (and elsewhere) was swept under the carpet. So yes, it was okay for white men and less so for white women. But definitely not too crash-hot if you were black, Asian, a new migrant, and so on and so on.

Quite frankly I get fed up with the Love the Past Tribes. Society is about change and you can’t go back, nor should we want to go back to a white-washed path. It smacks of fear and cowardice.

Cowering behind the white picket line is playing little.

Get on your feet.

Face the future with courage. Accept that the rest of the world is fed up with the interference of white Western nations. Let’s sort out our own backyards – stop wasting money on wars and armaments, feed the poor, provide decent housing, education and health, pay living wages so people can live with dignity, build good quality infrastructure, stand up for legal rights and respectful treatment of all people but particularly those facing discrimination – black, LGBT people, Jewish people, Asian people, Hispanic people, Islamic people.

Have the guts to open your heart to people who aren’t like you if you’re white and heterosexual – because mixing with people of different colour, race, sexuality or religion enriches your life, widens your horizons and opens you to the power of loving humanity as a whole not just one tiny part which happens to be white.

I sometimes feel a bit schizophrenic you know – on my other blog (http://thecrazycrone.org) I post digital art of elemental nature spirits, which I can see in photos of trees, flowers, scenery, waterfalls, etc. And on this blog I bang on about matters political. I think I ought to rename it: “Metaphysics Meets Marxism 101”!

As I was saying in another post, I often wonder why half my life was spent as a Marxist and the next half as a metaphysical crystal worker and whacko artist! Perhaps it reflects the fact I’m a Libran Sun with Libra Rising which makes me able to see both sides of a situation.

Well, anyway, I find the Marxist part of my life very helpful because it’s made me curious and it’s helped me understand quite a bit of how capitalism works. I don’t buy the claptrap peddled by Western media, I like to hunt around the internet to look at what’s behind stories and what is really going on with the propaganda outlets (read: Establishment media) of Western governments.

But I also enjoy reading stuff in astrology about world events. For example, I was fascinated to read a book by the astrologer Liz Greene (The Outer Planets and Their Cycles) which records a lecture she gave where she mentioned the astrological situation surrounding the Soviet Union and predicted its collapse based on transits occurring in the national chart. This was a decade before the Soviet Union fell apart.

So now we’re looking at an astrological era where Uranus has been stirring things up with Aries and Pluto has been similarly doing a Trickster job with Capricorn. All sorts of upheavals have happened under the first duo – the Japanese earthquake happened just as Uranus was heading out of Pisces (which covers earthquakes) and into Aries which pretty much coincided with the tsunami. While these events where happening,Pluto in Capricorn has been heaving out all sorts of hidden information about governments, the Establishment, plutocrats, super-wealthy rip-off merchants, the banksters, oligarchies and huge corporations.

No wonder there’s uproar in so many nations around the world!

So, onwards and upwards, cupcakes!

“Make the US great again”.

“Make Britain great again”.

We’ve heard these words, haven’t we, with Trump running around squawking them in the US and those who voted for Brexit, leaving the European Union, in Britain?

Do you really, really think, though, that things can go back to empires past?

The reality is that there is no going back because “great” meant subjugating other nations to access their resources and cheap labour. The US and Britain are “great” because they have grown rich by ripping off/interfering in/bombing nations as the West has been ascendant.

It’s hard to lose your status as a major power in the world but that’s what is happening – we are in a uniquely historical time of watching a major power going into decline, the US, and a former great power hankering for times gone past and trying to ride on American coattails. In the process they are trying to hinder the rise of China (by having a few bob on India) and undermine Russia – resources, resources, resources!

This is reflected in demands to make Britain and the US “great” again, when in reality the “great” days are over and we are witnessing great shifts in spheres of influence.

Precisely because of that, the US is even more dangerous as it flails around trying to hang on to its former glories.

So one of the very good reasons not to get side-tracked into the good boy/bad boy Hussein argument I mentioned in my last post about control of oil being the driving force behind the Iraq war is because in the background, precisely the same arguments are being used to start fomenting war with Russia and China.

Putin’s a monster and expansionist, so the media and Western leaders say, which is a bit rich after the chaos of the illegal war in Iraq. The Chinese are control freaks because they don’t have a multi-party system (what? with the current parties in the US, Britain and Australia looking more like Tweedledum and Tweedledummer???) and are building bases in the South China seas. We are constantly told that these two nations are aggressive, expansionist and must be contained.

It’s not a popular thing to say, but China has always claimed sovereignty over Tibet. It was not a magically benign and spiritual country – it was feudal with Buddhism being used to enforce that feudalism – reincarnation was used to get people to accept their place in the order of things, with a grand time for the top dogs and misery for the serfs at the bottom of the heap. Am I a fan of everything China has done in Tibet? No. But the US and Western nations use Tibet as a propaganda tool and I’m deeply cynical of their motives. It’s also not likely that China will let go of Tibet when the US is waiting to step into the breach right on China’s doorstep.

Similarly, the reality of the Crimea is that it was part of Russia from 1783, when the Tsarist Empire annexed it a decade after defeating Ottoman forces in the Battle of Kozludzha, until 1954, it was handed over to the Ukraine by the particularly stupid Russian President, Kruschev, without asking the population but hey, when he chooses to act in a non-democratic manner, that’s okay when it favours the West!

Of course, if you say this, you’re then accused of being an apologist for Russia and China. Well, no, actually. It’s simply that if we take off our rose-coloured glasses about how wonderful the West is, the reality looks a bit different.

If you have a quick squizz around, you’ll see that the US is beefing up its proxy states, like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Ukraine, which are all muscling up to China and Russia, ignoring – in the case of Russia – a tacit agreement that the Ukraine would be neutral (and don’t forget the CIA was up to its necks in the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych leading to the country now being run by fascist nationalists), increasing US troops in Europe and countries bordering Russia, holding manoeuvres in waters close to China, US ships entering the Black Sea (a very provocative move) and generally encircling China and its Russian neighbour.

A lot of this information has disappeared under the welter of media coverage of the political circuses in the UK and the US. But it is a festering sore. And so I’d like to suggest that when you see hysterical reports about the expansionist goals of Russia and China, you might like to consider whether they’re truthful or not.

Because, in the final analysis, it’s the US, with backing from other Western nations, expanding towards the Soviet Union and creeping up on China. Russia has certainly moved into the Crimea but it was always Russian territory. And the Chinese are bopping around in the South China seas to protect its flank from US attempts to step up aggression on its doorstep.

The war drums are beating, albeit it fairly quietly at the moment. But don’t be fooled. The decline of one global power and the rise of another hold the seeds of global conflict. The fight for peace continues!

In the Chilcot report on the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US and Great Britain, with Australia tagging along, and in all the reams of commentary about the contents of the report, there is a stunning silence about the real reason behind the war.

With attention focused on the then UK prime minister Blair and US president Bush, no-one is mentioning OIL.

It’s a bit like the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil Fawlty enjoins everyone not to mention the war when German holidaymakers stay at the hotel. “Don’t mention the war” he lectures staff while doing completely the opposite himself.

In the Fawlty Towers version of the Iraq War, however, it’s good ol’ whipping boy, Saddam Hussein, who occupies centre stage as the dreadful villain whose dastardly deeds demand that he be removed. And not one mention of OIL. Because that was the motivation, the real driving force behind both wars in Iraq and the subsequent sanctions imposed on Iraq by a US-dominated United Nations: the control of the oil resources of the Iraqi nation.

You can demonise Hussein for all your worth but, until the 1st Gulf War, Iraq was a country with great health services, good education facilities, modern infrastructure and no fundamentalist groups blowing people up left, right and centre. No, I know he was a dictator but the US and its allies have never worried too much about dictators (as in the US-backed right-wing dictatorships in South America or the Shah in Iran), the problem for Saddam-baby was that his country is sitting on top of rich oil resources, resources the US and other Western nations wanted to get their sticky little fingers on.

You could also add that the by-product for the mega-rich armaments industry was huge profits from the bombings on Iraq. Plus, let’s not forget, even more profits as they then had to replenish the arsenal unleashed on Iraq. And let’s also not forget the mega-million profits Halliburton got in Iraq, without due process of bidding for contracts, with its former vice-president Cheney involved in doling out the contracts (not forgetting Halliburton Corporation gave him a $34 million hand-out when he started his run for the US vice-presidency and, by the way, Cheney was opposed to removing Saddam Hussein from power after the first Gulf War!).

So while, yes, Bush, Blair and Howard were instrumental in unleashing the war, let’s not get suckered into a debate about the pros and cons of Saddam Hussein. He was the bait, the excuse for the war to conceal the real aim – control of oil.

As you can see, I’ve been fiddling with the site name again, basically because the one I used previously was really long and over the top. I decided to shorten it to “Warrior Woman” because someone commented on a post in Facebook and said they didn’t know my politics but liked my descriptive passion. This is what I said:

“Having seen the new ad by Nigel Farage, all I can say is that the man is a disgusting racist, using fear to promote his Brexit campaign, amid echos of Nazi propaganda about Jews, gypsies, the handicapped, trade union leaders. Farage is unfit for purpose and time those who oppose his disgusting policies stood up to oppose this smirking ratbag. Having seen those lined up for Brexit, I’m for Europe and staying in the EU. Playing little is no solution to problems with the EU, staying in, uniting with Greece, Portugal and Ireland to fight class war is far better than living on our knees under the disgraceful Farage and his cohorts.”

I sometimes dither about what I write but now I’ve decided I have to be and if I do rant on or preach, well, that’s who I am. I can’t be different to fit into someone’s mould of what a woman should be or write about or act. So I did decide, after reading the comment, that I like the idea of Warrior Woman, because I am passionate and militant and I don’t want to be associated with “ism’s” because they’re so limiting. And “politics” is just so divisive and creaking of old age. Surely we can do better!

Just to divert slightly, on July 2nd it will be the 20th anniversary since I broke my leg and ankle when I was living halfway up a mountain in south-east Queensland. I know the date as it was my father’s birthday. That date marked a complete break with my previous life where I’d been a member of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) for 18 years as well as being Vice-Chair for quite a few years. I was immobilised and I knew I could no longer look backwards, I had to look forward to a completely new approach to how I live. Now more than half my life has been spent as an artist, crystal worker, Tarot reader, lover of nature and photographer. Quite a turn around, which is probably a bit of an understatement!

Since then I’ve been involved in metaphysical areas because, over the years, I’ve had more examples of life after death than you can poke a stick at and there’s no way I could ever be an atheist. Nor, to return to the “ism” comment, do I ever want to be tied down again to a particular ideology which labels me as being of a particular political persuasion, bowing to majority opinion, because political structures these days are a hangover of patriarchal society. Politics seems to depend on who can debate best, who’s got the best charisma, who shouts loudest, how much money can be raised to buy elections, and how do you lie most efficiently to win an election which changes sod all basically.Oh, and don’t forget flogging armaments left, right and centre around the world regardless of the poor buggers getting blown to bits by those armaments.

But in this day and age, I don’t deny either that class war still exists – foisting the economic crisis of 2008 onto the backs of ordinary people under the guise of “austerity” while the billionaire bludgers get even more obscenely wealthy and the banks behind the crisis got off scot-free PLUS they were handed out billions in so-called “rescue” money.

We need to think of ways to organise against this horrible, horrible turning of the screws on so many sections of society to undermine the Establishment and set up alternative ways of running a compassionate, not a dog-eat-dog, society.

So I choose to be a freewheeling, feminist, independent, bugger-toeing-the-line warrior woman. My vision happens to be that I’m passionate about social justice and putting people before profits, building a society which is creative, encourages innovation, looks after people’s health and offers an education which encourages young people to be visionaries thinking outside the square.

That doesn’t mean I hate profits – it simply means that I happen to believe that people count and I think it’s bloody awful when shares go up after hundreds or thousands of people are sacked because the less money spent on providing people with a decent, living wage the more profits are made.

But I also happen to think that being in the Communist Party has some meaning in my life. Why was I there? What did I learn? How does it colour what I am today? Coupled with this is an involvement in the New Age movement, in fighting for peace, so how do the two mesh? Because I happen to believe they do mesh. Everything we do in life has some meaning and it’s up to us to sort it out and learn lessons from our experiences.

I don’t want to continue banging on today in this post, I’ll explain in more detail in my next post. But I do want to say that, coming to live in North Cyprus, where armed conflict waged until 1974, I’ve been forced to consider what peace, conflict and self-defence actually mean in practice, not just on paper And that’s it until my next post!

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Sedna is the latest planet to be discovered, on November 14th, 2003, just over a year before the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and subsequent hugely destructive tsunamis. She dwells in a remote region of space and is extremely cold while being a beautiful deep red colour. Sedna is the largest and most outlying body discovered since 1930.

Sedna to me relates to the rise of the feminine in the world today, our respect for the oceans and our commitment to protecting the waters and their inhabitants which are under so much pressure from human activity.

Sedna is named after the Inuit Goddess of the Arctic seas. This goddess lives in the icy depths of Adlivun, the Arctic underworld beneath the sea. How she came to dwell here and become a goddess of the oceans is told in various myths, but they generally include the fact that Sedna was a beautiful young woman who refused to marry the various suitors her father produced for her and wanted her to marry. One suitor, enraged by her rejection, presented her with a dog since she was so fussy. She subsequently developed a close, loving relationship with the dog with whom she had both puppies and human children. The dog cared most tenderly for his family. However, her father was infuriated by this union and ensured that the dog drowned while it was returning with food for his family.

The legend holds that, when a mysterious man arrived dressed in very fine skins and feathers, Sedna’s father finally forced her to marry him. The stranger carried her away but when they arrived at his destination, she found in fact that he was a Fulmar, a dangerous bird spirit living on an isolated island. He provided her with minimal food, fish only, and no warmth or love. Sedna called out her distress at this treatment and ultimately her father heard her. Overcome with remorse, he sailed his kayak to save her, carrying her off when the Fulmar was off hunting. When the Fulmar became aware of what was happening, he pursued the kayak with other birds of his spirit family and they stirred up a huge storm to overpower the kayak. In fear, the father threw Sedna overboard and, when she tried to get back into the kayak, cut off her frozen fingers one by one. As her fingers sank, they became seals, fish, dolphins, walruses, whales and polar bears.

Sedna sank below the waves and finally came to rest on the sea floor where she was reunited with her faithful canine husband. There she is reborn as a goddess, rewarding those who live in right relationship with the oceans and continents of Mother Earth, and ensuring they receive the food they need to live comfortably. However, if they forget this right relationship and abuse the creatures of the depths and land, Sedna withdraws her beneficence and creates huge storms, tsunamis, hurricanes and other forms of oceanic mayhem. She can only be placated by a shaman carrying out a shamanic journey to dive into the depths where she dwells on the ocean floor to make amends and return to right relationship with this goddess of life, death and redemption. Legend also holds that Sedna’s father ultimately kills himself in grief and guilt at his betrayal of his daughter.

Now why would the person who discovered this latest galactic spirit turn to Sedna to name his discovery? Perhaps because the intense cold and distance reminded him of the bitter cold in the Arctic depths where Sedna dwells. But interestingly in astrological terms, planets usually emerge into full view at certain times in our history and get named synchronistically, where the person naming that galactic spirit consciously recognized this or not. Thus the names of planets, planetoids and asteroids often end up resonating with developments in humanity on earth, whether in our conscious or unconscious awareness.

And Sedna is no exception. This goddess is primordial, created not by the gods or goddesses themselves, but by the actions of a human being and by the subsequent veneration of human beings. This planet resonates with being both victim and victimiser, disempowerment and empowerment, the power of the Divine Feminine, matriarchal and patriarchal relationships, father/daughter/family relationships, betrayal, redemption and spiritual rediscovery of Divinity within all elements of the Universe. Sedna accompanies us through our heart centre to our deepest emotional depths, she understands the turmoil this produces but she is the impartial witness to our courage in descending into the depths and to our lightness when we release inner dissonance. She makes no judgement of us, only lights the way for us to judge what is right and wrong and to release that which no longer serves our – and the universe’s – greater good.

Coming to grips with the energy of Sedna has actually had me tearing my hair out as superficially the story comes across as her being a rather silly, selfish, picky young woman, looking for a soft, pleasant life. You feel like you want to tell her get off her backside and bop her father over the head with an axe for trying to marry her off to any old bloke that turns up seeking her hand in marriage (hand being the operative word since hers get chopped off in the end). Similarly with the Fulmar, her best bet would have been to knock him off with a huge icicle, cut off his wings, fix them to herself and fly away from her icy prison. And when she swims back to the kayak, you rather wish she’d seize one of the paddles, whack her father in the crown jewels and hurl him overboard while she scrambles back on board. Yet there are indications of depths which the usual versions of Sedna’s journey to goddess-dom gloss over, including her relationship with her dog husband which shows a glimmering of an independent attitude.

Yet ultimately Sedna is the Justice of the oceans of the world – in her impartial judgement we stand in nourishment and fulfillment when we live in right relationship with Mother Earth and all things universal; and when we move out of that right relationship with Mother Earth, Sedna punishes us with the wrath of the oceans, whether storms, hurricanes, rain, floods or tsunamis. She is the call to us to know deep within us what is right and wrong and to make right choices; to empower ourselves, to make right decisions in following our song and our path on earth; to stand up for our beliefs, to return to right relationship with all things universal. Her lesson is that we are not individuals, we are part of the collective, inter-twined with everything and when we take action which does not synchronise with our soul, we create dissonance for all things. Sedna demands great responsibility from us, and in finding her strength and destiny, she points from the very depths the sword of justice which points towards our own highest journey. Ours is the choice to take that journey or not.

Sedna is an interesting journey – on the surface this looks like victimhood but in its depths it’s the journey to empowerment through choosing right over wrong, love over hate, connection over separation, love of all over love of self only, resonance with our emotions and with the watery depths which make up so much of our beautiful Mother Earth.

I have, unfortunately, been absent for some while due to a rather virulent bug which hit me at the New Year, not the best way to start off 2016! For the past three weeks I’ve had a dreadful headache, severe muscle pains, stomach pains and bronchitis, the sickest I’ve been in my whole life. Luckily I’m not too bad now although others who’ve had the bug have taken up to eight weeks to get over it.

In that time of enforced rest, however, I watched Series 1 & 2 of “Art + Soul”, about Aboriginal art with Hetti Perkins a leading curator of Aboriginal art. The programme looks at all aspects of Aboriginal art from past to present. I am particularly fascinated by the desert art and dot paintings. These represent what Ms Perkins called: “Encrypted Title Deeds to Country”, as Aboriginal artists represent their Country in the paintings and sing Country into their art as they create their images.

Thinking of this, it made me think of how we ourselves incarnate on Earth. If we view our cosmic soul song as encrypted title deeds to our own Country, to our own unique creation like no-one else, we might get a better understanding of who we are, our unique gifts and how we express our own individual spirit voice through the way we live, create and forge our own way in life.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m going to explain some of my own astrological chart so that you can see how my own “encrypted title deeds” operate in my own life. I was born with the Sun in Libra and my Ascendant also in Libra. The Ascendant is the constellation on the horizon as you’re born, the first energies you inhale and – for me – the energetic pathway to expressing your sun sign. So for me, I double up on Libra and it’s how I express myself in life.

I always strive to be pleasant and peaceable. But I am a staunch advocate of social justice, hate injustice, am pretty much always on the side of the poor, the downtrodden, the disadvantaged, working people and the unemployed. You could say it’s in my DNA! Added to this, I can see both sides of a situation or a person’s story and it drives my husband around the twist. He’ll make a comment and I respond, quite unconsciously: “Yes, but think of the other side, there are always two perspectives”. And he’ll rant: “There you are, off on your Libran thing again!”. Luckily we can both laugh but this ability to see both sides is intrinsic in me.

I love art, beauty, good clothes, flash jewellery and hate vulgarity, greed, bad taste (except for bling, of course!) and coarseness. I never find cruel or crude jokes funny and I pretty much never say anything cruel or wounding to someone because it offends my sense of propriety and also the awareness that words can hurt and have long-lasting consequences. I am lousy at standing up for myself although recently I’ve decided I’m not going to tolerate rudeness and hurtful comments in future.

Now if you look at my husband’s natal chart, he has his sun in Leo and his Ascendant in Aries. He is passionate, kind, brutally honest, totally without tact, very fiery, a born leader, impatient, intolerant and is always on the move. The idea of sitting at a computer appalls him, but he had a grand time as a dogman (the guy who directs cranes) on high-rise building sites where he could run around all day, taking charge of lots of stuff and being active. He once suggested he’d take me to the very top of a high-rise building (ie, walking up heaps of steps as it was unfinished and lifts didn’t reach the top yet) so I could see the views across Perth, Western Australia, and over to Rottnest Island, about five miles distant from the city. He thought he was offering me a grand treat. I thought he was offering me a complete nightmare! My husband was a union organiser, health and safety officer and shop steward – he always stood on the side of workers and was respected for his honest dealings.

On our wedding day – we got married after 27 years together and are now coming up for the 39th anniversary of when we met, 16th April 1977, 6.30pm. Bryan moved in with me that night and we’ve been together ever since. Air and Fire signs get on very well.

I’m not saying it’s been easy over the years. We have had to work to accommodate each other as we have quite different energies and interests – I’m into dreams, crystals, psychic stuff, Tarot, arty-farty, abstract art and the peace movement. We both have the same ideals about social justice – luckily! I loathe conflict but my husband is happy to stand up to bullies. I call him my Rottweiler because I’ll get him to deal with difficult situations while I lurk in the background. My husband is into gardening, model railways, army history (he was in the British Army), landscape and portrait art, Scottish and Celtic music, do-it-yourself and home renovation. I will work into a new home and think it’s okay. Bryan will walk into a new home, note all the bits and pieces that need repairing/straightening/sort out and get on with it. We worked together once, for 30 minutes, on a piece of home renovation until we had an almighty row and I told him to stuff his renovation where the sun don’t shine and told him never again (which I’ve stuck to). My husband is a sergeant-major given half a chance, but it’s been good for me to overcome my peaceable nature and stand up to him. And it’s been good for him to have someone stand up to him and shout back because he naturally takes charge.

We both had bullies as fathers but how we reacted differed greatly. I went quiet as a kid, kept my head down, strove for approval and was incredibly well-behaved. My husband, on the other hand, played up, got into trouble wherever his army family ended up, stood up to his father and refused to knuckle under. But, we both wanted our fathers’ approval and we never got it.

In my next post, I want to talk about my Libran Sun being in the Twelfth House, and Neptune being in the First House, as they both incline me to be interested in psychic matters, to be hyper-sensitive, to sense people’s emotions and to be flitting off with the fairies, given half a chance.